Ammon Wrigley in Uppermill, Saddleworth

This is the impressive setting for Ammon Wrigley's statue in High Street, Uppermill, Saddleworth.^*

 

James Collins's bronze statue on a concrete pedestal was erected in Uppermill High Street in 1991. It shows the poet Ammon Wrigley in his noted flat cap and open coat on the moors he loved to walk. There were objections raised that the concrete base wasn't in keeping with local stone, and that the statue was a little removed from the remote country he loved; on the first issue, concrete was used as a secure base, and on the second, it is doubtful that many people would know of the existence of Ammon Wrigley today if his statue had been, say, in as obscure a spot as the Ammon Wrigley Memorial, which is near the Dinner Stone overlooking Castleshaw: Wrigley's ashes, according to his wishes, were scattered there.

I didn't attempt to find the memorial as yesterday (when we went to Uppermill) the weather was awful, although I found the book I was looking for in the tourist information office next to the car park at the side of the statue: With Ammon Wrigley in Saddleworth, by Sam Seville ([Saddleworth]: Saddleworth Historical Society, c. 1984). Seville was Wrigley's son-in-law, married to his daughter Amy. More posts on Ammon Wrigley will follow in due course.

 

'AMMON WRIGLEY

1861–1946

POET AND HISTORIAN'

 

^*Saddleworth is the name of a collection of villages and hamlets in the metropolitan borough of Oldham, of which Uppermill is the biggest.